sprung!

As of today, April 10, spring has sprung. In a big way.

Watching The Masters is a rite of springtime passage for Rob and me, and usually we watch the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, with its gorgeous azaleas and rhododendrons, and sigh longingly, knowing that our own spring bloom is another couple of weeks away.

Not this year.

After a brutally cold and snowy February and early March, Mother Nature decided that she, too, was sick of the cold and gray and threw the Spring Switch. Suddenly, almost overnight, we went from cloudy and 30 degrees to sunny and 70. We missed the usual stretch of 50–60 degree days ... sweatshirt-and-shorts weather. Instead, we blew full-on into early summer.

We opened the Side Porch Cafe weeks early, and had our first dinner al fresco last weekend. We spent today in the sunshine, spreading mulch (a job that's often done in cool temps).

Typically, spring brings a gradual awakening of the landscape: first, the weeping cherry blooms like a cheap prom dress, then the flowering crabapple, then the dogwoods come a week or two later. This year, the early magnolias and cherry trees are blooming right alongside the later dogwood and redbud. It's all happening at once. It's magnificent (and allergen-laden), but a bit disconcerting.

While I welcome the early patch of warm weather, it is compressing the spring growing season, and I fear that I'll blink and miss it.

I need to do a better job this spring of looking around and taking it all in.